US adds Russian supercomputer maker to list of nuclear threats

Six months ago, a company called T-Platforms triumphantly announced the "First Delivery of [a] Russian Supercomputer to [the] US."

The US government has since added T-Platforms to a list of entities that are "acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States" by having involvement with nuclear research. Specifically, T-Platforms' operations in Russia, Germany, and Taiwan were added to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Entity List by representatives of the US Departments of Commerce, State, Defense, and Energy. This will make it difficult for T-Platforms to do business with US companies, although it isn't an outright ban.

"The Entity List notifies the public about entities that have engaged in activities that could result in an increased risk of the diversion of exported, reexported, or transferred (in-country) items to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs," the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security said in its notice that T-Platforms is now on the list. "Since its initial publication, grounds for inclusion on the Entity List have expanded to activities sanctioned by the State Department and activities contrary to U.S. National security or foreign policy interests, including terrorism and export control violations involving abuse of human rights."

That supercomputers are used for nuclear research isn't surprising—it's one of the main reasons US government agencies are always buying bigger and better high-performance computing clusters.

As for why T-Platforms was named to the Entity List, the notice states that the company was "listed as the ultimate consignee on multiple automated export system (AES) records filed for the export of dual-use items controlled for national security reasons but shipped without the required licenses."

"Dual-use" in this context means having both commercial and military uses. The notice further states that the US "has reason to believe that T-Platforms is associated with military procurement activities, including the development of computer systems for military end-users and the production of computers for nuclear research."

The government announced this decision in March, and it was reported by HPCwire and then Slashdot this week. We have e-mailed T-Platforms and Commerce Department spokespeople to ask for more specifics on why T-Platforms was included on this list, and we'll provide an update if we receive one.

Founded in 2002, T-Platforms made the 26th-fastest supercomputer in the world, a system based at Moscow State University. The aforementioned delivery of a supercomputer to the US went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which needed lots of horsepower for research into "materials with special electronic and optical properties, and materials for supercapacitors and batteries to store energy."

Inclusion on the list will make it difficult for T-Platforms to do business with US companies. The Commerce Department said there will be a "presumption of denial" applied to transactions involving the company.

"Certain exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to entities identified on the Entity List require licenses from BIS [Bureau of Industry and Security] and are usually subject to a policy of denial," the Commerce Department said in its T-Platforms announcement. "The availability of license exceptions in such transactions is very limited."

Only exports are mentioned as being restricted, as opposed to imports. This could still be troublesome for T-Platforms, as it has used chips from US companies Intel and AMD in its systems.

As Slashdot reported, "The rule means that unless the company successfully appeals, [it] will have a difficult time obtaining systems directly from American manufacturers—although T-Platforms could turn to the channel or, at worse, the gray market."

The Entity List itself includes various organizations from the sorts of countries you'd expect (Afghanistan, China, Iran) and from countries that are on good terms with the US (such as Canada and Israel). Many of the entries are universities, scientific organizations, and computer or electronics firms.

So its classified as dual use EAR tech, what is the big deal? All that means that it can't be exported without an export license. Considering these items are imported, I'm trying to figure out how that really affects them. True, they probably won't be able to ship it back under warranty repair, and the technicians that come over to support it can't leave with parts...

Most (All?) industrialized countries have export control laws. All this does is classify items that are manufactured or exist in the US and whether or not they need a special license to be taken across international boundries. A pencil made in the US is classified under EAR rules, they just don't require a export control license to ship them to Mexico. You can't ship a pencil to Iran, however, from what I remember of my EC classes.

My former boss and his partner were showing some spooks a 9-trk tape reel. The spooks were concerned with data protection, and wanted to know the mechanism that allowed for writing and erasure of the tape.

MY BOSS: "Well, you put a 'write ring' in this groove on the back of the tape, and that allows for write access to the media."

SPOOK: "So...if we can prevent someone from inserting a 'write ring' into the groove, that will protect the media?"

MY BOSS: "Um...yeah, sure...I guess..."

SPOOK: "Great! So all we have to do is fill the groove with epoxy! Problem solved."

So, I can buy a supercomputer for whatever I want, just as long as it's American made? Psh.

On another note... that is a kick-ass looking cluster, and I hope it gets some screen-time in the next Bond film.. perhaps the return of SPECTRE

There are countries American companies can not sell to either and others they would be massively fined if they tried without following current procedure. I think one got a big fine a few years ago because they did not do enough checking on a third party that resold the just purchased components to Iran.

I think all this export control and secrecy stuff causes more trouble and does not solve the problem. Because of EC and Secrecy, the US government can block competition. Because of the State Secrets Act the government can do bad things and no one is allowed to know about it.

UNIX showed us a long time ago that blocking knowledge about how something works gives a false sense of security. Rather let it be open and fix the issues as they come up. I am not sure what a public key/private key is in this space but I am sure there is a much more open way to conduct international commerce and protect the citizens of the US.

It doesn't matter whether ITAR is a good idea or not. It's simply pointless here. Look up the machine on the 500 list. It uses Intel and Nvidia chips with Infiniband interconnects. All western technology. Like every other "supercomputer" maker nowadays, they just slap extra cabinets on the nth fastest to make an n-xth fastest.

not sure how effective this will be as majority of the goods are made overseas.

cut the middle man (US) out and they will be home-free.

For instance, many of Intel's processors are made in Costa Rica (and some in the Philippines).And I'm sure there's plenty of foreign VARs/distributors that get shipments directly from Intel's overseas fabs.

Motherboards and such tend to be made in China.Same with memory (China or Taiwan).

Guys, this is not called "heavy trade restrictions"; this is a death sentence for the company.

It can't buy any non-obsolete CPUs or GPUs made by Intel, AMD, or Nvidia. (Remember, we are talking about supercomputers; British Arm cores and Chinese Lemotes won't cut it.) Not from any US supplier. Not from any foreign supplier that wants to ever do business with the US. Not from any foreign supplier that wants to ever so business with any foreign company that ever wants to do business with the US...

But suppose T-Platforms designs its own CPU which is somehow competitive with Intel. Where could that CPU possibly get manufactured? No foundry in the world will take it - since every modern foundry uses US technology, has US customers, or in most cases both.

The only way to overcome the restriction would be for T-Platforms to in-house all of its chip design and all of its manufacturing. This would require years, tens of billions of dollars, and engineering expertise that Russia lacks.

So unless this dispute is resolved through diplomatic channels (e.g. Russia finds an excuse to add a punitive tariff for US goods, and lets the US know the tariff would get lifted if certain Russian entities are removed from the EAR list), T-Platforms might as well shut its doors right now.

Most (All?) industrialized countries have export control laws. All this does is classify items that are manufactured or exist in the US and whether or not they need a special license to be taken across international boundries. A pencil made in the US is classified under EAR rules, they just don't require a export control license to ship them to Mexico. You can't ship a pencil to Iran, however, from what I remember of my EC classes.

And these laws are mostly stupid, especially in this age. If you want to make Iran less of a threat to US interests, not only allow us to ship them pencils, but encourage the building of a censorship resistant communications system. Twitter is a better tool for spreading democracy than keeping countries in a technological backwater and giving them a good reason to be pissed off.

On another note... that is a kick-ass looking cluster, and I hope it gets some screen-time in the next Bond film.. perhaps the return of SPECTRE

tetromino wrote:

Guys, this is not called "heavy trade restrictions"; this is a death sentence for the company.

[...]

So unless this dispute is resolved through diplomatic channels (e.g. Russia finds an excuse to add a punitive tariff for US goods, and lets the US know the tariff would get lifted if certain Russian entities are removed from the EAR list), T-Platforms might as well shut its doors right now.

So.....maybe T-Platforms has a chassis and some blinkenlights available for movie now, da?

A lot of uninformed comments on this article. Having worked with Export Compliance for a large tech company, I can tell you:

Export Control is a PITA.Export Control is expensive.Export Control is actually effective.

As Tetramino pointed out, there is a lot of complexity to reproducing these capabilities and denying access delays capability acquisition by years or even decades.

I also have to deal with export control and happen to build and maintain HPC clusters using the same computer components T-Platforms uses. Export control on these commodity built clusters are nothing more than a bunch of bullshit red tape. There is nothing special about their clusters. You can build the same thing using standard parts from Supermicro, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Mellanox, and triplite. The only thing complex is the software to do the simulations which can be written in open source tools like python, C/C++, MVAPICH, etc. I'm pretty sure T-Platforms does NOT sell or offer a software package that claims to accurately simulate nuclear tests. Cluster vendors will setup the hardware and software for their customers to write and run their own code. That is about it.

So its classified as dual use EAR tech, what is the big deal? All that means that it can't be exported without an export license. Considering these items are imported, I'm trying to figure out how that really affects them. True, they probably won't be able to ship it back under warranty repair, and the technicians that come over to support it can't leave with parts...

I was talking to someone who works for a big DoD contractor once (I don't want to name names, just to be safe). Basically, he was telling me how even when the system they're buying is from, say, a French company (read: a company from a country that most anyone would consider "friendly"), they get into these absurd situations where when something breaks, they can't tell them important information like "what actually broke" because of a combination of export restrictions and things being classified.

Madlyb wrote:

A lot of uninformed comments on this article. Having worked with Export Compliance for a large tech company, I can tell you:

Export Control is a PITA.Export Control is expensive.Export Control is actually effective.

As Tetramino pointed out, there is a lot of complexity to reproducing these capabilities and denying access delays capability acquisition by years or even decades.

How is it effective to prevent the people who built the system telling you how to fix it on export control grounds? They already know how to build the thing. Nothing is gained from applying export control and security classifications to it.

I like how they use the "national security" label for tactics that protect U.S. businesses from competition.

It has nothing to do with competition. I agree the US government does a lot of shit it ought not to be doing. That's got nothing to do with this, though.

The article, and supporting documents if you bother to look into them, make it clear that not only have they been exporting export controlled items without proper licenses but are also involved in military procurement activities with other (AFAICT unspecified) governments. Combine those two things and it means they're almost certainly doing stuff we don't want them to be doing with our technology. This isn't rocket science; it's illicit arms dealing 101, in fact. Now, if this were simply making shoulder fired rocket launchers or something that might be one thing. Since we're talking about things that support nuclear proliferation, this is really quite serious.

Maybe this is the US retaliation to the Russian YS-adopt-a-russian-baby-export-prohibition retaliation to the US lawmakers condemning Putin et al for letting the anti-corruption lawyer be beaten and die in jail.

As for why T-Platforms was named to the Entity List, the notice states that the company was "listed as the ultimate consignee on multiple automated export system (AES) records filed for the export of dual-use items controlled for national security reasons but shipped without the required licenses."

Although most of the comments suggest they got on the list for making a supercomputer, the article actually says they got on the list by purchasing items that were illegally exported from the US.

In other words, not for making a computer but for being party to smuggling supercomputer components out of the US. ("Smuggling" may be too strong, it could also be a simple oversight in filing paperwork. I don't know how much of a hair trigger there is for this sort of thing. But not complying with export laws in any case.)

(Remember, we are talking about supercomputers; British Arm cores and Chinese Lemotes won't cut it.).

40 years ago people said "Hondas and Toyotas will never compete with Ford and GM".

The thing was that nobody claimed a Fiesta was a national security risk. It reminds me of reading Sakharov's "My Country and the World" or about how businesses worked in Communist Poland. Everything was a 'security risk' to cover up the fact that it was a corrupt back-room deal between some oligarch and a bribe laden government minister.

So let me get this right. This company is now on a special list that says that US companies can't sell them parts made in Taiwan or China? Seriously? What makes anyone think that they Intel chips that Intel sells here aren't also being sold under the table by the fab making them?

I like how they use the "national security" label for tactics that protect U.S. businesses from competition.

It has nothing to do with competition. I agree the US government does a lot of shit it ought not to be doing. That's got nothing to do with this, though.

The article, and supporting documents if you bother to look into them, make it clear that not only have they been exporting export controlled items without proper licenses but are also involved in military procurement activities with other (AFAICT unspecified) governments. Combine those two things and it means they're almost certainly doing stuff we don't want them to be doing with our technology. This isn't rocket science; it's illicit arms dealing 101, in fact. Now, if this were simply making shoulder fired rocket launchers or something that might be one thing. Since we're talking about things that support nuclear proliferation, this is really quite serious.

Edited for spelling

They might support nuclear proliferation, but there's a far greater likelihood of supporting solitaire proficiency. You are assuming that export controls are reasonable, well defined, and limited in a sensible matter.

Export controls are asinine and impossible to enforce once the product passes the border, even if purchased legally. On top of that, you can buy Intel's latest and greatest chips overseas anywhere. Intel probably had their reference board designs stuffed and soldered in China, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.

If the Russians designed their own pcbs, they probably are using US CAD software they bought here running on those desktop workstations and servers they bought from DELL or HP or Lenovo, OH MY!!! a communist conspiracy!!!! /sar

Get real and get over it. We have what the f****** politician's (who're in the pockets of big business) wanted, a global economy. It doesn't make much sense to piss and moan about export control violations when the supposed violating company sells YOU the hardware they built out of that "illegally obtained" technology. You didn't have to buy it. That's exactly what we've been doing for decades with the Chinese. Apple iCrap is only the crust of the imported "global pie".